When I first saw this in the theater, I thought it was a solid if somewhat predictable fairy tale. Not one of Pixar's best, but utterly enjoyable in its own right.
On a second viewing, I'm much more impressed. This time through I was able to soak in the epic grandeur of the location, pay more attention to the relationship between Elinor and Merida, and observe the deft plotting and character nuance. Part of it may be the difference between a first viewing, where (after spending weeks of viewing key moments in trailers and commercials) my mind was more focused on "oh, this must be where the bit with the three little bears comes in, oh, this must tie in with that bit that I saw yesterday", and a second viewing much later where I'm just... you know... watching the film.
So, all that said, let's talk about the film itself. As mentioned before, it's gorgeous. A lot of attention was paid at the time to Merida's hair, but it's incredibly easy to overlook the accuracy and the detail of the landscape itself. The moss, the trees, the water, the play of light, the changes of weather. From a technical standpoint, it's awe inspiring what they were able to accomplish. From an artistic standpoint, it's mind bending. Animation, I think, allows directors to more closely create on film what they have in their minds.
The character animation is also first rate, especially with Merida. I love the fact that she's cute, but she's not a "Disney Princess." She has a full range of facial expressions, to start with. Watch the film and watch her face. In most Disney films, if you freeze frame at any point the princess will look beautiful. Distressed and beautiful. Angry and beautiful. Amorous and beautiful. Sleepy and beautiful. It doesn't matter, they always look perfect. Freeze frame on Merida and you get goofy, cute, blubbery, derpy... for all that she has a bit of a doll face, it moves like an actual human being's. The animators and director have been very clear that they wanted to create a character that was a more real option for girls, and in my mind they absolutely succeeded. Not only is she the hero, not only does she have interesting and relatable character flaws, not only does she have interests other than cute boys... she is more interested in expressing herself than in looking perfect.
Let's look at the Bechdel test for quick moment. Yes, this film passes... but despite being focused on a mother daughter relationship, it might not have. The main plot point, after all, revolves around an arraigned marriage. The film could have quite easily been all about their relationship with their men. Fortunately, the writers clearly established that the whole suitor thing was just the tip of an iceberg in this relationship. The true power that held this kingdom together was the power of the queen... and that was what was truly at stake in all this. Yes, they talk about the suitors, and about the fear of marriage... but for a film set in 10th-13th century Scotland, the men are fairly unimportant to the story.
The film, in my mind, is ultimately about growing up, about understanding the need for compromise, about family, and about taking responsibility. Merida spends a good portion of the film denying responsibility, both her responsibility to the kingdom and her responsibility in what happens to her mother. Only at the end, when all her attempts to fix the problem have failed, does she finally move from it being the witches' fault to it being her own. In many ways, what Merida did was worse than what Mar'Du did. Mar'Du tried to change his fate by changing himself. Merida tried to forcibly change someone else. Mar'Du's reasons were for power, while Merida was ultimately trying to avoid power... so their reasons were opposite, but Merida's action was much more selfish.
This is getting long, so I'll just make one quick observation with this and the last film I reflected on: Paranorman. Both films had major themes about the importance of stopping and LISTENING to the person you were in opposition to. Elinor and Merida both have significant problems with listening to each other, and in my mind the true climax of the film in terms of their relationship is Merida's speech to the Lords while Elinor coaches her from the back. Everyone is listening. The Lords are listening to the Merida, Merida is listening to Elinor, Elinor is listening to Merida, the Lords listen to their sons... in many ways, the story ends there: the kingdom has been saved. All that really remains is the big action climax and showdown that the plot demands.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Paranorman
I had heard that Paranorman was good, but I wasn't expecting it to be this good.
It's truly an all-ages film, in that adults have as much to enjoy as kids do. Unlike many all ages films, however, it doesn't do that by slamming as many pop culture references as possible into a kids story. Paranorman is far more canny. It relies more on sly insights and clever framing and deft acknowledgement of human interactions than snark and sarcasm.
And yes, it's about bullying... but not just schoolyard bullying. This is the brilliance of the film. It is ultimately about fear, and what fear does to people. It's about how fear can make good people do evil things. It is about how fear can change you into something horrible. How fear makes you the thing to be afraid of.
I love how violence is not the answer, but it's the thing that people turn to as a solution. I love the connection between the puritans and the modern townsfolk, and I love the horror of the puritans at seeing what their village has turned into.
I think that special note should be taken of the character design. There is something so visually appealing about LAIKA's style: Norman's perpetually frightened hair, Mitch's torso while standing next to Courtney's hips, the gentle eye pouches on Sandra and the stocky goateed midwesternness of Perry. As caricatures, they're simply wonderful. Everyone is so gloriously imperfect. There isn't a Disney princess in the lot.
I greatly enjoyed Coraline, but I loved Paranorman and I can't wait to see what LAIKA brings us next.
It's truly an all-ages film, in that adults have as much to enjoy as kids do. Unlike many all ages films, however, it doesn't do that by slamming as many pop culture references as possible into a kids story. Paranorman is far more canny. It relies more on sly insights and clever framing and deft acknowledgement of human interactions than snark and sarcasm.
And yes, it's about bullying... but not just schoolyard bullying. This is the brilliance of the film. It is ultimately about fear, and what fear does to people. It's about how fear can make good people do evil things. It is about how fear can change you into something horrible. How fear makes you the thing to be afraid of.
I love how violence is not the answer, but it's the thing that people turn to as a solution. I love the connection between the puritans and the modern townsfolk, and I love the horror of the puritans at seeing what their village has turned into.
I think that special note should be taken of the character design. There is something so visually appealing about LAIKA's style: Norman's perpetually frightened hair, Mitch's torso while standing next to Courtney's hips, the gentle eye pouches on Sandra and the stocky goateed midwesternness of Perry. As caricatures, they're simply wonderful. Everyone is so gloriously imperfect. There isn't a Disney princess in the lot.
I greatly enjoyed Coraline, but I loved Paranorman and I can't wait to see what LAIKA brings us next.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
I quite enjoyed this, but it's not so much a movie as an excellent pilot for a series... or it deserves to be. Too many characters, with too many storylines, in too short a time. It's adapted from a Novel, which I imagine has much more room to breathe.
On the strong side of things, there are the wonderful performances of a stellar cast at the top of their game. At this point, I believe that it is impossible for Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, or Tom Wilkenson to turn in a less than mesmerizing performance. On the weak side of things are plots that telegraph their endings so blatantly, that it's not a matter of knowing what is going to happen but hoping that the route to the inevitable is somewhat interesting.
Fortunately, it is.
Let's break these down one plot at a time.
Judi Dench is a widow whose husband took care of everything, and now that he's gone no one believes that she can take care of herself. Within the first few scenes we know that this is going to be a life affirming journey in which she will find that she is resourceful and resilient and come to some important understandings about being her own person. What makes her story really work is her role as cultural advisor to a call center. Her scene with the phone jockeys, teaching them to ignore scripts and relate to people as ... well ... people is an absolute joy. There is no judgement that the ultimate goal is to sell people something, but rather to recognize that they are reaching out to human beings and not just sales targets. She brings some humanity to an extremely impersonal business.
Tom Wilkinson's story is the most compelling, and it is the least telegraphed. All we know at first is that he's not looking forward to retirement, then in the midst of a farewell speech... he declares that this is the day and walks out. We learn that he lived in India 40 years ago, and he's clearly trying to reconnect with something, but the details are doled out bit by bit, slowly revealing a complex and sorrowful man. Time constraints cut short some potentially wonderful scenes, such as the off camera discussion between Evelyn (Dench) and the wife of Graham's (Wikinson) old companion. Had this been a series, the end of this story line would have been a season closer, or a devestating mid-season shake up.
Bill Nighe and Penelope Wilton give us the Ainslies. She's status obsessed and he's browbeaten. He sees life and beauty and all she can see is poverty and loss. These characters really needed their own movie. Wilton is a master at being utterly horrible while also being profoundly sympathetic. Everything that comes out of her mouth is just wrong, but you can clearly see where it is coming from. You see the pain behind that smile, the desperation in her voice, the need and fear that run through her. When the crux of her crisis comes, it's heartbreaking. Indeed, her story bucks convention the most. We expect her to realize her shallow outlook, and release her negativity... but that isn't who she is. She cannot, and will not thrive in this place and her exit feels utterly true to who she is. No one will be rooting for her character, but the world is not populated with saints.
Nighe is not exactly a saint, although his character is clearly a martyr. We wait for him to stand up to his wife, to help her see the world around them the way he clearly does... and he sort of does that. In the end however, he is who he is. His wife says not to follow her to the airport... but he does. He's too late, but it's one last perfunctory act of loyalty, as deeply ingrained in him as his knife slash mouth. I wish we could have followed him into India, seen the places he was going, experienced the city through his eyes. Even more, I wish we could have seen more of him and his wife being real with one another. There is a history and a relationship there that could have made their ending much more striking, as opposed to kind of a relief.
Maggie Smith is one of the few people who can make a racist shrew enjoyable to watch. This is another plot whose end seemed inevitable from the beginning. Old woman who is loudly and unashamedly racist will end up in India and discover that brown people are not very different from her and become a warm and new person. What makes her story remotely interesting is, well... it's Maggie Smith... and understanding what is behind her racism, and her bitterness. Her interaction with the woman, once of the untouchable caste, is such a stark reminder of her own status in Britain as a house servant, of how she was tossed aside, of how the love and devotion she gave to her family was treated as just a business relationship by them... it's heartbreaking. Muriel (Smith) has been treated as nothing and nobody by those she cared for, by those she sacrificed for, and so her bitterness and venom gets turned on those she can see as beneath her. Race is such an easy marker for people to use when looking for a target.
This story offered one of the most poignant moments of the film, when the interpreter tells Muriel that the girl wants to thank her for her kindness, and Muriel... shocked... replies "I haven't been kind to her." As she says those words, you get the sense that she hears them herself for the first time. How often do we face that kind of self-confession.... that we haven't been kind to others... and for no good reason?
If if seems like this is a lot of plot threads, it's not over yet. We also have the barely existing storylines of Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Madge (Celia Imrie). These are characters who could have actually been dropped from the film for all that they are used here. Norman wants to revitalize himself with a younger woman... and he does. Madge wants to revitalize herself with a husband... and she doesn't (but kind of is on her way in the closing montage). The only real surprises here were that they didn't end up with one another. Again, their relationship had such potential, and in a series format so much more could have been done. They feel like characters who had a lot going on in the book, but here are just filling out the ensemble. This is by no means the fault of the Pickup and Imrie, who take what little they are given and run with it. It's just too much in too small a time frame.
Indeed, more justice could have been given to them by shrinking down the story of Sonny (Dev Patel) and Sunaina (Tena Desae). Sonny as the overly optimistic and hyperactive hotel manager is excellent, and Suniana is quite lovely... but we really didn't need an "overbearing mother who doesn't approve of her son's life choices and this girl who he wants to marry" storyline here. We could have had Sonny's story, and the danger of losing the hotel, and the timely rescue plot without the threat of family bit. The time could have been better used fleshing out some of the other storylines. And the old man speech that suddenly makes the mother remember her own history... I mean, come on. Seriously?
I'm complaining a lot here, but mostly because there was so much good here, such good characters, such an amazing cast, so much potential... but turning it into a movie was a mistake. As a BBC series, it could have had the room to breathe, stories could have gotten the depth of treatment they deserved, and we could have seen more of India than the "third world" decay and squalor.
Such a nice film, but such a missed opportunity.
On the strong side of things, there are the wonderful performances of a stellar cast at the top of their game. At this point, I believe that it is impossible for Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, or Tom Wilkenson to turn in a less than mesmerizing performance. On the weak side of things are plots that telegraph their endings so blatantly, that it's not a matter of knowing what is going to happen but hoping that the route to the inevitable is somewhat interesting.
Fortunately, it is.
Let's break these down one plot at a time.
Judi Dench is a widow whose husband took care of everything, and now that he's gone no one believes that she can take care of herself. Within the first few scenes we know that this is going to be a life affirming journey in which she will find that she is resourceful and resilient and come to some important understandings about being her own person. What makes her story really work is her role as cultural advisor to a call center. Her scene with the phone jockeys, teaching them to ignore scripts and relate to people as ... well ... people is an absolute joy. There is no judgement that the ultimate goal is to sell people something, but rather to recognize that they are reaching out to human beings and not just sales targets. She brings some humanity to an extremely impersonal business.
Tom Wilkinson's story is the most compelling, and it is the least telegraphed. All we know at first is that he's not looking forward to retirement, then in the midst of a farewell speech... he declares that this is the day and walks out. We learn that he lived in India 40 years ago, and he's clearly trying to reconnect with something, but the details are doled out bit by bit, slowly revealing a complex and sorrowful man. Time constraints cut short some potentially wonderful scenes, such as the off camera discussion between Evelyn (Dench) and the wife of Graham's (Wikinson) old companion. Had this been a series, the end of this story line would have been a season closer, or a devestating mid-season shake up.
Bill Nighe and Penelope Wilton give us the Ainslies. She's status obsessed and he's browbeaten. He sees life and beauty and all she can see is poverty and loss. These characters really needed their own movie. Wilton is a master at being utterly horrible while also being profoundly sympathetic. Everything that comes out of her mouth is just wrong, but you can clearly see where it is coming from. You see the pain behind that smile, the desperation in her voice, the need and fear that run through her. When the crux of her crisis comes, it's heartbreaking. Indeed, her story bucks convention the most. We expect her to realize her shallow outlook, and release her negativity... but that isn't who she is. She cannot, and will not thrive in this place and her exit feels utterly true to who she is. No one will be rooting for her character, but the world is not populated with saints.
Nighe is not exactly a saint, although his character is clearly a martyr. We wait for him to stand up to his wife, to help her see the world around them the way he clearly does... and he sort of does that. In the end however, he is who he is. His wife says not to follow her to the airport... but he does. He's too late, but it's one last perfunctory act of loyalty, as deeply ingrained in him as his knife slash mouth. I wish we could have followed him into India, seen the places he was going, experienced the city through his eyes. Even more, I wish we could have seen more of him and his wife being real with one another. There is a history and a relationship there that could have made their ending much more striking, as opposed to kind of a relief.
Maggie Smith is one of the few people who can make a racist shrew enjoyable to watch. This is another plot whose end seemed inevitable from the beginning. Old woman who is loudly and unashamedly racist will end up in India and discover that brown people are not very different from her and become a warm and new person. What makes her story remotely interesting is, well... it's Maggie Smith... and understanding what is behind her racism, and her bitterness. Her interaction with the woman, once of the untouchable caste, is such a stark reminder of her own status in Britain as a house servant, of how she was tossed aside, of how the love and devotion she gave to her family was treated as just a business relationship by them... it's heartbreaking. Muriel (Smith) has been treated as nothing and nobody by those she cared for, by those she sacrificed for, and so her bitterness and venom gets turned on those she can see as beneath her. Race is such an easy marker for people to use when looking for a target.
This story offered one of the most poignant moments of the film, when the interpreter tells Muriel that the girl wants to thank her for her kindness, and Muriel... shocked... replies "I haven't been kind to her." As she says those words, you get the sense that she hears them herself for the first time. How often do we face that kind of self-confession.... that we haven't been kind to others... and for no good reason?
If if seems like this is a lot of plot threads, it's not over yet. We also have the barely existing storylines of Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Madge (Celia Imrie). These are characters who could have actually been dropped from the film for all that they are used here. Norman wants to revitalize himself with a younger woman... and he does. Madge wants to revitalize herself with a husband... and she doesn't (but kind of is on her way in the closing montage). The only real surprises here were that they didn't end up with one another. Again, their relationship had such potential, and in a series format so much more could have been done. They feel like characters who had a lot going on in the book, but here are just filling out the ensemble. This is by no means the fault of the Pickup and Imrie, who take what little they are given and run with it. It's just too much in too small a time frame.
Indeed, more justice could have been given to them by shrinking down the story of Sonny (Dev Patel) and Sunaina (Tena Desae). Sonny as the overly optimistic and hyperactive hotel manager is excellent, and Suniana is quite lovely... but we really didn't need an "overbearing mother who doesn't approve of her son's life choices and this girl who he wants to marry" storyline here. We could have had Sonny's story, and the danger of losing the hotel, and the timely rescue plot without the threat of family bit. The time could have been better used fleshing out some of the other storylines. And the old man speech that suddenly makes the mother remember her own history... I mean, come on. Seriously?
I'm complaining a lot here, but mostly because there was so much good here, such good characters, such an amazing cast, so much potential... but turning it into a movie was a mistake. As a BBC series, it could have had the room to breathe, stories could have gotten the depth of treatment they deserved, and we could have seen more of India than the "third world" decay and squalor.
Such a nice film, but such a missed opportunity.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Iron Man 3
First impressions:
I came into this one with a little trepidation and a lot of curiosity. New writer and director, the controversy over an English actor (even if it is Ben Kingsley) playing the Mandarin, the way that the film universe has changed so much since Iron Man 2...
So many things could have gone so very wrong.
In the end though, I really enjoyed it. What I liked most of all was the idea that the events of the Avengers had impacted Stark way more than was immediately apparent in that last movie. I liked that for all his confidence and snark, his encounter with gods and monsters and aliens deeply freaked him out. I liked that flying through a hole in the sky to confront a whole fucking armada of spaceships in deep space (while holding a nuclear missile was giving him nightmares. I liked that ultimately, Steve Rogers' accusation that he was nothing without the suit actually hit home.
I'm extremely curious about where they will go with this now. Stark no longer needs to be in the suit for Iron Man to operate. He no longer needs to put himself in physical danger. He has remote controlled drones now. He no longer has the shrapnel, so he is no longer a walking metaphor. In many ways, he seems poised to become the Reed Richards of this modified Marvel Universe.
They did interesting things with his fame in this. He put himself out there as Iron Man, but up until now he's been in complete control of that celebrity. Putting him among the people who are getting Tony Stark tattoos and kids with Iron Man toys was a really nice way of grounding him, especially as he's unraveling and unprepared to deal with the attention. Marvel's always been good at continuity, and keeping those last moments of the Avengers in mind was a very nice touch.
Let's talk about Pepper for a moment. To a certain extent, she was still the damsel in distress, but in each film they've given her more and more to do. First she's the one who actually pushes the button that finishes off the bad guy. Second she's the CEO who puts the actual finger on Hammer and sends him off to the cops. Now she's briefly in the suit and then given super powers and once again deals the coup de grace to the main villain. It's a really interesting take on the old cliche. The damsel in distress who strikes the final blow. I don't know that it's ever been done before. I also liked that this Iron Man actually passed the Bechdel test, with that lovely scene between Pots and the "botanist."
Rhodey got more to do as well. He doesn't get to do much in the suit, but gets to display some impressive bad assery on his own. I quite like that Rhodey is actually a little diminished inside the War Machine armor, and is much more impressive on his own. He really doesn't need the suit to be awesome. The suit hinders his effectiveness more than anything else, turning him into a PR device more than anything else.
Ok, the Mandarin. I was a little concerned at first that the Mandarin was just this vague threat... almost a Batman villain, really. All psychopathic behavior, but nothing underneath. The big reveal on the character worked really well for me, but ultimately resulted in him feeling even more like a Batman (film) villain. He suddenly became Rhas Al Gul. That the Mandarin was a front for someone else... it would have been so much more impressive before the Christopher Nolan Batman films. It was done with much more humor here, but it didn't feel nearly as innovative as it could have been. Still Kingsley was absolutely golden in the role, switching back and forth from dramatic and menacing to pathetic and comic without making it seem at all false.
It does put the first film into an interesting perspective. AIM was the funding source behind the group that kidnapped Stark in the first place. This means that AIM was building up terrorism or the express purpose of driving up a need which they could then fill. The old con game of inventing a need while being the one person in a position to meet that need that you just created. Deleted scenes indicate that the shadowy agent who gave Vanko his fake passports at the beginning of IM2 was part of the Ten Rings, so Killian has been coming at Stark for a while now.... so why the direct route now?
The answer seems to be that up until now AIM couldn't move into the void left by Stark and then Hammer, because the government wasn't willing to look into their methods... but with the return to Cap, and the alien invasion.... ethics are going out the window. All scruples are being discarded in the name of safety. This is addressed directly at the end of the film. We start off pure, but then we look up and we've wandered so very far from our intentions.
I really hope that they can maintain this. I want to see how Captain America deals with a government that was prepared to embrace AIM. I want to see Rhodey and the Captain. I want to continue to see how this world continues to reel and react to the events of the Avengers and the continually changing reality of the super-humans. I want to see how the SHIELD series ties into all this.
Yeah, I'd say that the film succeeded.
I came into this one with a little trepidation and a lot of curiosity. New writer and director, the controversy over an English actor (even if it is Ben Kingsley) playing the Mandarin, the way that the film universe has changed so much since Iron Man 2...
So many things could have gone so very wrong.
In the end though, I really enjoyed it. What I liked most of all was the idea that the events of the Avengers had impacted Stark way more than was immediately apparent in that last movie. I liked that for all his confidence and snark, his encounter with gods and monsters and aliens deeply freaked him out. I liked that flying through a hole in the sky to confront a whole fucking armada of spaceships in deep space (while holding a nuclear missile was giving him nightmares. I liked that ultimately, Steve Rogers' accusation that he was nothing without the suit actually hit home.
I'm extremely curious about where they will go with this now. Stark no longer needs to be in the suit for Iron Man to operate. He no longer needs to put himself in physical danger. He has remote controlled drones now. He no longer has the shrapnel, so he is no longer a walking metaphor. In many ways, he seems poised to become the Reed Richards of this modified Marvel Universe.
They did interesting things with his fame in this. He put himself out there as Iron Man, but up until now he's been in complete control of that celebrity. Putting him among the people who are getting Tony Stark tattoos and kids with Iron Man toys was a really nice way of grounding him, especially as he's unraveling and unprepared to deal with the attention. Marvel's always been good at continuity, and keeping those last moments of the Avengers in mind was a very nice touch.
Let's talk about Pepper for a moment. To a certain extent, she was still the damsel in distress, but in each film they've given her more and more to do. First she's the one who actually pushes the button that finishes off the bad guy. Second she's the CEO who puts the actual finger on Hammer and sends him off to the cops. Now she's briefly in the suit and then given super powers and once again deals the coup de grace to the main villain. It's a really interesting take on the old cliche. The damsel in distress who strikes the final blow. I don't know that it's ever been done before. I also liked that this Iron Man actually passed the Bechdel test, with that lovely scene between Pots and the "botanist."
Rhodey got more to do as well. He doesn't get to do much in the suit, but gets to display some impressive bad assery on his own. I quite like that Rhodey is actually a little diminished inside the War Machine armor, and is much more impressive on his own. He really doesn't need the suit to be awesome. The suit hinders his effectiveness more than anything else, turning him into a PR device more than anything else.
Ok, the Mandarin. I was a little concerned at first that the Mandarin was just this vague threat... almost a Batman villain, really. All psychopathic behavior, but nothing underneath. The big reveal on the character worked really well for me, but ultimately resulted in him feeling even more like a Batman (film) villain. He suddenly became Rhas Al Gul. That the Mandarin was a front for someone else... it would have been so much more impressive before the Christopher Nolan Batman films. It was done with much more humor here, but it didn't feel nearly as innovative as it could have been. Still Kingsley was absolutely golden in the role, switching back and forth from dramatic and menacing to pathetic and comic without making it seem at all false.
It does put the first film into an interesting perspective. AIM was the funding source behind the group that kidnapped Stark in the first place. This means that AIM was building up terrorism or the express purpose of driving up a need which they could then fill. The old con game of inventing a need while being the one person in a position to meet that need that you just created. Deleted scenes indicate that the shadowy agent who gave Vanko his fake passports at the beginning of IM2 was part of the Ten Rings, so Killian has been coming at Stark for a while now.... so why the direct route now?
The answer seems to be that up until now AIM couldn't move into the void left by Stark and then Hammer, because the government wasn't willing to look into their methods... but with the return to Cap, and the alien invasion.... ethics are going out the window. All scruples are being discarded in the name of safety. This is addressed directly at the end of the film. We start off pure, but then we look up and we've wandered so very far from our intentions.
I really hope that they can maintain this. I want to see how Captain America deals with a government that was prepared to embrace AIM. I want to see Rhodey and the Captain. I want to continue to see how this world continues to reel and react to the events of the Avengers and the continually changing reality of the super-humans. I want to see how the SHIELD series ties into all this.
Yeah, I'd say that the film succeeded.
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